No News is Bad News for Nonprofit Journalism

America is unique among democratic nations in its nearly
complete reliance on commercial media to inform our communities, educate our
children, and hold power to account. The media system we have is no accident. At
every point in history when technological change challenged the incumbent media
establishment—from radio to TV to the Internet—policy decisions have concentrated
media in the hands of a few commercial stakeholders. Unfortunately for the
burgeoning nonprofit journalism sector, history seems about to repeat itself.

Right now, the Internal Revenue Service is considering
whether journalism and media organizations should be eligible
for nonprofit status. That may sound odd given that nonprofit journalism
has been a part, albeit a small part, of American media for decades—think Mother Jones, NPR, the Christian Science Monitor, even the
Associated Press. YES! Magazine
itself has operated as a nonprofit since its founding 16 years ago.

Nonetheless, a whole cadre of new journalism start-ups like
the San Francisco Public Press, Worcester Wired, and Monitor Oklahoma have been waiting months—some even years—for
the IRS to approve their applications for nonprofit status.

How did we get here?

At the end of the last decade, it was becoming increasingly
clear that the advertiser-driven commercial media model was not
producing the full extent of news and information our communities need. Job
cuts decimated newsrooms, companies closed foreign bureaus, and the number of
journalists covering statehouses had shrunk to almost zero in many places.

Ideally American
media would be as diverse as American communities in representation,
perspectives, and business models.

In response to these changes, many journalists turned to a nonprofit
model that would refocus newsrooms on their public mission instead of just
their stock prices. Since 2008, there has been a spike in applications for
501(c)(3) nonprofit status from journalism organizations. This uptick has
raised red flags at the IRS, which has put a hold on nearly all of these new
journalism applications until it decides how it will rule.

We are at a critical juncture. This moment could be the
start of a new era of noncommercial journalism in America, with innovative new
nonprofits poised to fill the gaps in meaningful reporting that have been left
by much of commercial media. Those nonprofit journalism organizations that won IRS
approval before the agency’s clamp-down began, such as ProPublica, the Texas Tribune,
MinnPost and Voice of San Diego, are illustrating the power of this model. They
are winning awards, engaging communities, and covering issues that the
mainstream media have largely abandoned.

If you are a regular reader of YES!Magazine, then you understand the need for a different kind of
journalism than we see in most of American media. Now imagine a thousand new YES! Magazines, imagine local versions
covering beats in your neighborhood, or a YES! Magazine dedicated to 24-hour coverage of your statehouse. The seeds of change
are there, but this delay at the IRS is hindering the growth and sustainability of
nonprofit journalism efforts. Worse, a bad ruling from the IRS could threaten the
survival of even longstanding nonprofit publications and websites.

In the same way that
monoculture crops are dangerous to the food system because they are all share
the same weaknesses, for too long our journalism ecosystem has suffered from monocultural
thinking.

If the IRS decides against allowing nonprofit status for
newsrooms, it will essentially be arguing that all journalism should be done
for profit. The problem is, the market has proven it will not provide the full
extent and diversity of news and perspectives we need. In her paper “Can
Nonprofits Save Journalism?,” Marion R. Fremont‐Smith argues that IRS
regulations don’t take into consideration the current economics of the news
industry. She reminds us that “[revising] prior precedent due to changed
circumstances is the essence of charity law,” and has ushered in important
innovations and institutions we now consider fundamental to American society.

Nonprofit journalism is not a silver bullet for the future
of journalism. But fostering a more diverse media system is. Ideally American
media would be as diverse as American communities in representation,
perspectives, and business models. What the IRS doesn’t understand, or what its policies
won’t let it admit, is that we need a vibrant and diverse mix of for-profit,
nonprofit, public, and community media organizations. In the same way that
monoculture crops are dangerous to the food system because they are all share
the same weaknesses, for too long our journalism ecosystem has suffered from monocultural
thinking. Tough economic times and shifts in advertising have hit longtime journalism
institutions hard.

We shouldn’t let the IRS put us in the same position again. The
IRS is working with a set of outdated
policies that don’t account for the state of our media today. In the long
term, we need to change those policies, but right now we need to clear the way so we
can get more journalists on the street serving our communities.

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Josh Stearns wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Josh is
the journalism and public media campaign director for Free Press. Follow him on Twitter.